As such, the FBI narrated the story of an 83-year-old woman who fell for a romance scam. Kathy Weil was quickly enamored by a Washington State civil engineer named Fred, whom she met online. A few sweet words and a promise of marriage after, Fred lured K...
Over6032%8FBIWarnsaboutanIncreaseinSextortionComplaints./Media/Y2021/PSA2109029ScammersDefraudVictimsofMillionsofDollarsinNewTrendinRomanceScams.EREPORTCRYPTOCURRENCY(VIRTUALCURRENCY)In2021,theIC3received34,202complaintsinvolvingtheuseofsometypeofinICorethanbillionInitiallyworthonlyfractionsofpenniesonthedollar,...
Fraud schemes related to the COVID-19 vaccine started surfacing online more and more recently.[1]This factor encouraged the FBI and other US federal agencies to issue warnings about such scammers exploiting the particular interest in vaccines. The main goal of such fraud scams remains money and ...
The FBI provided two cases as examples were BEC scammers abused email forwarding rules during their attacks: In August 2020, cyber criminals created auto-forwarding email rules on the recently upgraded web client of a US-based medical equipment company. The webmail did not sync to the desktop ...
The scam usually begins when a scammer sends an anonymous letter claiming to have uncovered evidence that the recipient of the letter has committed acts of adultery. The scammer threatens to reveal the information to the recipient’s spouse, family and friends, and demands payment in exchange for...
Police report: Scammers use FBI, IRS as luresJohn Branton
Last month, the Associated Presswrotethat toy maker Mattel lost $3 million in 2015 thanks to a CEO fraud phishing scam. In 2015, tech firmUbiquitidisclosedin a quarterly financial report that it suffered a whopping $46.7 million hit because of a CEO fraud scam. In February 2015, email con...
The FBI Internet Crime Report from 2021 showed there were 24,299 victim reports of romance scams. This resulted in $956 million in losses. Reports of these types of scams have gone up every year since 2019. Agent Hellmer says scammers most often target the elderly, especially widows and wi...
BEC scammers have beentargetingthe real estate sector over the past few years, which was already mentioned in the IC3’s 2017 internet crimereport. Authorities recorded an increase of over 1,100 percent in the number of victims from real estate transactions from...
The easiest ways to avoid this scam are by never sending money to a person you only know via email, being wary of strangers offering you large sums of money, and always being suspicious of transactions that involve additional and hidden fees. ...